Pengelly stood looking down at him for some few minutes, wanting to speak, but flinching from his task. "Well," said the old man at last, "what is it? Ye're a strange chap, Amos Pengelly. Ye won't drink nor smoke a pipe, only stand and stare and glower, as if you was too good to mix with the like o' me. Now speak out, or else go." "I want to know if it's all true, Master Prawle?" "If what's all true?" "What I've heard up churchtown." "How do I know what you've heard up churchtown? I was there this morning, and I heard that Wheal Carnac was flooded. Is that what you mean?" "No, Master Prawle. I mean--I mean about Mullion's lass. Is she here?" The old man took his pipe from his mouth, and nodded. "Did Master Trethick bring her here last night?" The old man nodded again. "And it is all true about--about the little one?" "Ay, it's all true enough," said the old man. "But never mind about that. He'll marry her by-and-by, and it will be all right next time. Look here, Amos, what are you going to do about Wheal Carnac?" "I don't know," said the miner. "Then get to know," said old Prawle, eagerly. "Look here, Amos, you're fond of coming and hanging about, and I know what you mean, of course. So look here, I say, if you want to be friends with me, Amos Pengelly, you've got to come and tell me what goes on there, and what you are going to do, my lad, about that mine, d'ye hear?" "Yes, Master Prawle," said the miner, heavily. "I must go back now." "Yes, you'd better," the old man said, with a leer. "They don't want men folk about here now. My Bessie has turned me out, and I don't seem to belong to the place. I'll walk part of the way back with you, Amos, and talk about the mine;" and, to Pengelly's astonishment, the old man did so, talking eagerly the while about the water, and the best way to clear it off. "P'r'aps they'll give her up now, Amos," he said, at last. "P'r'aps they won't spend no more over her." "Very likely," said Pengelly, wearily. "Then mind this--if you want me to be on your side, Amos, you come over now and then and tell me all." Pengelly nodded, and they parted, the miner making haste back to his cottage, where he found that Geoffrey had not stirred, neither did he move all that night, while Pengelly dozed beside him in a chair. It seemed as if he would never wake, and the probabilities are that a man with a less vigorous constitution would never have woke again, so powerful was the drug thrown with reckless hand into the brandy by the ignorant man. In fact it was ten o'clock the next morning before Geoffrey started up and gazed wonderingly at Pengelly. "You've woke up at last, sir," said the miner, with a reproachful look. "At last? What do you mean? Good heavens! How my head throbs." "It was a sorry trick to do, Master Trethick, and not a man's part, to go and drown your _brain_ like the pit."